On Thu, 6 Feb 2014 19:27:07 +0000
John Hall wrote:

In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:
I certainly can't recall such relentlessly similar charts since I've
been looking at computer models over the last 10 years. The thing
that strikes me is the small variation in the tracks of the lows.
Apart from zero cold snaps (or even hints at them in future charts)
there haven't been any brief northerlies or north westerlies which
usually occur during the odd transitional phase.
Dave, S.Essex

I think you might have to go back to 1962-3 to find a winter as
remarkable as this one, for southern England at least. Of course
1962-3 was remarkable in a very different way. I can't remember
another winter with such frequent or (for the most part) deep
depressions affecting us.

There is a factor connecting this winter with 1962-3. In that winter,
I recall that the NE Pacific and Atlantic south of the Grand Banks had
large cold pools which, it was believed at the time, caused a mild
winter over the USA and severe cold over Europe with a high pressure
anomaly over Iceland and low over the Azores during JAn-Feb.

This year the two areas are warm, the Pacific area particularly so from
well before the start of the winter. The two warm areas have this year
combined to produce a severe winter over the eastern USA and the
stormy, zonal weather across the Atlantic and Europe.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. Mail: 'newsman' not 'newsboy'.
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